Articles Posted inComputer Use

Hey, if you’re a big employment dork like me, (vote Handbook!), you’ve already read a bunch of blog posts, and you’ll read several more about how the sky is falling after yesterday’s NLRB decision, in which the Board held that employees may use company email to discuss the terms and conditions of employment.

Yes, this decision extends to any workplace — not just unionized workplaces — that is covered by the National Labor Relations Act. And, yes, it may help your employees communicate with one another to form a union (gasp!) or otherwise discuss working conditions, but…

First, this rule only applies to employee communications on non-work time. So, you don’t have to pay employees to talk trash about the company. If your employees don’t have access to work email, this decision does not require you to give it to them.

Second, do you really think your employees strictly adhere to your computer-use policy that says that company electronic equipment should be used for business purposes only?

Third, I find it hard to believe that employees who wish to unionize would prefer to use company email as a way to discuss forming a union, versus other equally (or more) effective means (e.g., social media, personal email, text message, phone, face to face) that are far less susceptible to employer interception.

But, above all, if you run operate a company that communicates with its employees, values them not just in terms of the dollars you pay, but the respect you give, then unionization will be the furthest thing from their minds.

And if discussions over company email are enough to convince your workforce to unionize, then you deserve to have a union.

The CFAA is designed to prevent unauthorized access or malicious interference with a computer system. Often used as an employer-sword, to state a claim for a violation of the CFAA, a company must prove that an employee actually caused damage to its computer system or data. The CFAA defines “damage” as “any impairment to the integrity or availability of data, a program, a system, or information.”

In Instant Technology, LLC v. DeFazio (opinion here), the former employee deleted all of her work emails from her inbox.

Well, damn, that sure sounds like an impairment to the availability of data.

Yeah, except, in this case, all those “deleted” emails remained in two places: (i) the former employee’s email trash folder and (ii) on the company’s email server. Therefore, because the company did not show that any data was lost or impaired, it could not demonstrate “damage” and, therefore, lost its CFAA claim.

But, had the former employee double-deleted her email — like any good scoundrel — and the company’s email server been wiped, there could have been a CFAA violation.

To avoid these problems, as a best practice, be sure to remind your employees that any work emails are company property and should be held/deleted consistent with your company’s computer use/email policy.

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“An employee who emails pictures of Trayvon Martin‘s head cropped onto the body of a dead police officer is a thought-leading change agent.”

– Absolutely nobody in HR

No, he gets fired.

According to this story from Chris Biele at FOX40 News in California, an employee in the state’s Employment Development Department forwarded that picture with the message, “Would it make people feel any different if this face was on a dead pig?” And of course, the picture made it onto Facebook.

Just terrible.

Here’s my simple golden rule on forwarding emails at work:

“If you would feel at all uncomfortable about having to explain from the witness stand to a federal judge or jury why you forwarded that email, it’s best not to hit send.”

As evidenced by the nature of this blog post and the picture on the right, it’s best not to leave me in the office alone, unsupervised, with an iPhone, and App Store credits, as I punch this out at 10:52 at night on a Thursday. (And yet, somehow, the Wall Street Journal deems me quotable).

Ah, serendipity! The following day, I read about another case decided last week in which the NJ Superior Court reaffirmed that many employee emails are not private. More on this case and a best practice for employers after the jump…

Let’s assume that your company — as many do — has a computer-use policy, which underscores that electronic communications sent over your network are not private and the company has the right to monitor all such electronic communications.

Under federal law, communications between the spouses, privately made, are generally assumed to have been intended to be confidential, and hence they are privileged. What if a husband and wife who work for your company email each other over your network? Are these emails subject to the marital privilege, or does the computer-use policy eviscerate it?